Whom Should We Mock?

My last post on Daylight Atheism, asking non-believers to tone down the contempt for Harold Camping and his followers, and many of you disagreed. Some commenters didn’t believe there was anything intrinsically destructive about mocking others, others argued that ridicule was a necessary tactic to help people deconvert. TommyP commented to say deconversion was catalyzed by the confrontational attitudes of unbelievers, while Elizabeth Esther wrote on her blog that she was alienated by the people outside her cult who treated her beliefs with contempt, so she could not share her doubts with them.

John Loftus and PZ Myers take an extremely confrontational, contemptuous tone towards Christians, and they’ve caught a lot of flack, both from accommodationists like Chris Mooney and more hard-line atheists. I’m skeptical about the efficacy of these tactics, but I’d love to hear from commenters like TommyP in more detail about how mockery and contempt helped them give up their old beliefs. Even if ridicule is helpful, and worth the danger of alienation and unwarranted pride, we should be careful of adopting condescension as a default approach if we truly want to convince people. Before you unleash your disdain, think about these factors.

Consider your audience

Assuming that mockery can work as a shock tactic, it still won’t do any good if you write a blog for a primarily atheist audience or if you’re joking around with non-believing friends. If your criticism isn’t accessible to the people you’re ostensibly trying to help, it’s hard to defend jeremiads as tactical rather than self-congratulatory. And I don’t think the Christian trolls who frequent atheist blogs promising hell are likely to be reachable enough to justify any rancor as public-spirited.

They have to care about your opinion to be shamed.

For plenty of fundamentalists, the fact that we’re criticizing their beliefs is proof that we can’t be trusted. We’re either deliberately in league with Satan or sadly deceived. But even in milder cases, outright contempt is often a bad opening gambit. You wouldn’t be likely to be shaken by the contrary opinions of a complete stranger, so why do you expect a Christian will take your disbelief as disproof? This kind of strategy is most likely to work with friends or family, who have a reason to want you to think well of them. But if you already have built up trust and respect, you can probably mound a more nuanced, substantive attack (and if you can’t, it’s time to hit the books).

What’s the marginal utility of your mocking?

The shocking fact of your disagreement will only make an impression of sheltered believers who are unaccustomed to dissent, and most of us won’t have the opportunity to try to deconvert them. For believers who are routinely exposed to criticism, whether the universally mocked Camping or more mainstream religions that still take fire, it’s worth asking yourself how it is that your contempt will make a critical difference. If you doubt it will, your time is probably better spent coordinating lobbying campaigns against culture war legislation or making your own beliefs defensible and accessible than writing invective on the internet.

Don’t lose your compassion

If you do take up the weapons of mockery and ridicule, have an eye to your own character. It’s sad when people are dumb or gullible, and it’s scary when those people are in power, but the more foolish you think they are, the less culpable they must be for their error, no matter how destructive. Intervention may be necessary, but the mentally unstable aren’t deserving of contempt of hatred, even if their actions harm themselves or others. Abandon these tactics if they lead you into overweening pride and teach you that your intelligence/upbringing/etc gives you the right to humiliate and punish others.

So, if you’re going to take a sarcastic, mocking approach, you’d best make sure: